Emmanuel Fonte | Music | Art | Leadership
If music be the food of love, play on. Emmanuel Fonte website is about music, art, real estate, architecture, design and decor. Occasionally, I talk about my other passion, hockey.
Are you planning to put your home on the market sometime soon? When putting your home up for sale there are several things you need to keep in mind in order to get your home sold quickly and at the highest price possible. Here is the ultimate seller’s checklist to help you get the best results.
What a wild year it’s been. You could say that 2013 was the year of social media and you’d be correct. What was once a novelty for people bored and surfing on the ‘net has risen to be an industry in and of itself that companies large and small have embraced around the world as a powerful cornerstone of their marketing initiatives.
In case you got lost in the details of 2013, we’ve laid out all the notable moments of the year, month by month, in this handy infographic.
What was the most notable social media moment in your life in 2013? Let me know in the comments.
An interesting infogrpahic from the University of San Francisco.
The marketing benefits of social media make it compelling to institute into an online marketing strategy.
Social media has evolved into active engagement with the consumer and has shown to increase a business’s exposure, improve search rankings, generate leads and grow business partnerships. As stated below, 40% of businesses who engage in social media have seen an increase in sales.
Found this post from Daniel Scocco on his great site: DailyBlogTipsDid you know that around 60% of all retail prices end with a 9 digit? No one is sure about why the digit 9 in specific, but most marketers and economists know that ending a price with it tends to increase sales.
For those who want empirical evidence, back in 2003 some MIT folks did a quite interesting study around the subject. The basically used a mail-order company that sells women’s clothing, and the priced the same pieces at three different levels: $34, $39 and $44. Care to guess the results?
The $39 price tag outsold the other, by a factor of 15% up to 30% in some cases. If you didn’t get the insight yet, let me re-phrase it: the same product sold more units with a price of $39 then with a price of $34!
The same results were found when they used $44, $49 and $54 price levels, as well as $54, $59 and $54. In other words, the price tag ending with a 9 virtually always outperformed the other price tags, were they higher or smaller.
Here’s the conclusion from the paper:
We have presented three ?eld experiments demonstrating that $9 price endings increase demand but that the effect is context dependent. The effect is stronger for new items that customers have seen less frequently in the past.
Pretty interesting huh? Here’s the link to the PDF if you want to read it in full.
| Linkedin is an online network that allows you to manage your professional identity by networking with potential employers online. All you have to do is make a profile, from there you’ll get to discover new, professional opportunities, all while learning about the latest news, opportunities, and business ventures. It’s pretty much the young professional’s version of Facebook. |
source: MaximizeYourSocial
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From the folks at YardSaleHelper.com
The Appraisal Institute recently advised homeowners to properly maintain their landscaping, which can significantly affect property values.
“If a landscaping change is positive, it can often enhance price and reduce a home’s time on the market,” says Appraisal Institute President Richard L. Borges II, MAI, SRA. “But if the change is negative, it can lower the price and lengthen the time a home remains for sale.”
Curb appeal is essential when selling a home, Borges says, noting it’s the homeowner’s opportunity to make a great first impression. A home with lackluster landscaping or an exterior in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint will likely be unappealing to prospective buyers and ultimately could affect the home’s potential resale value, he said.
Landscaping is typically associated with lawns, trees, bushes and flowers. But other items also can be considered part of landscaping, such as fire pits, decks, patios, waterfalls, swimming pools and outdoor lighting … all of which could add to the value of the home.
Borges adds that homeowners should trim growth regularly, replant approximately every 5 to 10 years depending on growth and not “overwhelm” the house. He also advised that homeowners check out what their neighbors have done and keep landscaping maintenance and improvements on par with neighborhood norms.
According to the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors, trees that are too close to buildings may be fire hazards. Additionally, larger tree root systems that extend underneath a house can cause foundation uplift and can leech water from the soil beneath foundations, causing the structures to settle and sink unevenly.
According to a recent study conducted by Lawn & Landscape magazine, about two-thirds of homeowners say they’ll get less than 60 percent of their landscaping investment back when they sell the home.
“Landscaping improvements could make an impact on resale value, and homeowners need to consider how long they’ll be in the home and whether to make short-term updates or plan for the long haul,” Borges says.
Borges says homeowners should ask themselves the following questions when it comes to the quality of their home’s green space:
• Is the landscaping attractive enough to make the prospective buyer walk through the front door? Keep the design contemporary and in line with comparable properties in the area.
• Could the landscaping provide cost savings? Landscaping that requires little or no water to maintain could be desirable depending on the geographic area.
• Is the landscaping energy-efficient for the home overall? For example, it’s a good idea to plant trees in a place where they block the sun in locations with year-round hot climates.
• The trees planted at a safe distance from the home and are they healthy and well maintained? Weak, old or damaged trees planted too close to a home or building could pose dangers to the home’s structure and will need to be removed. Consumers should also be sure that mulching or beds don’t get too close to wood around foundations to avoid wood-destroying organisms.
For more information, visit www.appraisalinstitute.org
